And the Cuban Missile Crisis, on some subsequent readings of history, was not a triumph of bold statesmanship as it was hailed at the time, but a piece of foolhardy grandstanding that unnecessarily humiliated the Soviets and precipitated the arms race that defined the Cold War. Even on civil rights – the subject of one of Kennedy's greatest speeches in June 1963, when he vowed that "Every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as he would wish to have his children treated." – the reality never matched the myth. Kennedy...
